Dola
Brought out an old classic today in Risk - turns out neither my roommate nor her boyfriend had ever played it before. Had a blast teaching them, although the roommate needs a better grip on chokepoints and fortifying borders
Thought I'd ping the board though - what's your strategy when it comes to Risk? Where do you start, and what is your initial goal? I have found that mine changes greatly based upon what everyone else is doing, but I love North America. It's a little big and tough to get a hold of, but with only three entryways (Greenland, Central America and Alaska), it's really easy to hole up there once you do consolidate power.
As a kid I used to immediately try to grab Australia, but I'm now disinclined to do so because it's so hard to get the hell out of there once you build up some power. Africa is also nice, but with Europe/Middle East/Brazil as access points, it can be very difficult to hold on to once you get it.
Tonight I was able to grab all of Australia and a significant portion of South America and Africa while my roommate and her boyfriend postured for North America, Asia and Europe in the initial land grab. By about 5 or 6 turns in, I had all three continents and was amassing a nice little army. The boyfriend, however, was able to wrest control of both North America and Europe, and quickly made my dreams of a simple mop-up victory a thing of the past. I began building up Egypt and West Africa, thinking to punch through southern Europe to break up his continental control...but then he decided to try to put my roommate out of her misery, and pushed a bunch of troops out of Alaska and into Kamchatka. I seized the chance to rush him through Central America, swept all the way through to Iceland, and he conceded the game (it's late and we both work early). A lot of freaking fun though!